


I Wanna Be Known (By You)

by gansey_is_our_king



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Bit o' romance, F/M, Friendship, M/M, and terrible christmas parties, mostly this is about friendship, post trk, pretty sappy honestly, relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 07:45:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13095582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gansey_is_our_king/pseuds/gansey_is_our_king
Summary: Blue and Ronan are on their way to a Gansey Christmas party.  No one really wants to go.  Friendship is important.





	I Wanna Be Known (By You)

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this for the lovely @poptartsplat on tumblr for the trc-exchange! Kudo or comment if you loved it (or hated it)! Title from the Twenty One Pilots song "Goner" because I'm not really that creative I guess _

In an unusual turn of events, Ronan Lynch arrived on time for something. He had never been a particularly prompt individual, behaviour that did not improve with the addition of his fussy pet raven and a hooved dream child, so Blue was more than a little surprised when she looked out the kitchen window and saw his charcoal gray BMW squeal to a stop on the curb.

It was exactly one minute to three.

Opal pressed her cheek to the back window of the car, her warm breath leaving a fog on the glass. Her short blond hair became wilder every day she was in the waking world, and chunks stuck out underneath the ratty skullcap that she refused to take off. Her huge eyes followed a paper cup that was blowing past on the street, and then snapped to Ronan when he shoved open his door.  

He climbed out, and caught Blue looking at him through the window.

She waved.

Ronan stuck his middle finger up at her, but he was grinning.

“I heard a car outside!” Maura called from the reading room.

“Is that our adopted daughter?” Calla added sarcastically.

Blue jumped up and went to stand in the hallway, where she could see the two psychics sitting on the sofa, but also reach the front door easily. Her mother clutched a cup of footy tea while Calla laid out tarot cards on the coffee table in a complicated pattern. It could have been any normal afternoon on any normal day, except for the glaring absence of a third psychic, and Blue tried her best not to look at the empty space beside Maura.

It had only been five weeks since they found Glendower.

Six weeks since Persephone died.

The bruises were still fading, and it hurt when you pressed too hard.

“Are you sure you want to babysit?” Blue said. “You can just say no.”

Maura sipped her tea. “I think we can handle it. You turned out okay, after all.”

“Did she?” Calla asked, raising one eyebrow.

“I turned out okay.” Blue echoed her mother. “Mostly.” The doorbell rang at that moment, and she went to answer it. She found Ronan standing on the other side with Opal bundled up in his arms, and Chainsaw riding on his shoulder. Her normally sleek neck feathers were all ruffled up in the cold, and when Ronan stepped inside the raven took off again with a low croak of relief.

She soared directly over Blue, who ducked out of the way.

Ronan nudged the door shut behind them with his boot.

“Maggot,” he said.

“Lynch. Hey.”

They smirked at each other.

“Kerah!” Opal wailed.

Ronan put her down, but kept holding her hand, stopping her from darting away after Chainsaw. “Are you ready for this shit?” he said to Blue, eyeing the patchwork quilt dress and scuffed vinyl boots that she was wearing with obvious amusement.

Blue pulled on her jacket. “You hate it? Not that I actually care what you think.”

“I never said I hated it.”

“You look like you hate it.”

Ronan rolled his eyes. “And you look like you just walked out of a thrift store.”

“Ha! Thanks.” She threw on a knit scarf as Opal started to whine.

“Wipe your feet,” Ronan snapped at her in response.

“Hooves,” Blue corrected.

“Whatever.”

Opal shot Ronan a nasty look, a very Lynch look, but when he just pointed at her hooves she wiped them dutifully on the rug. Ronan nodded at the mud stains that were left behind in approval, and then he crouched down so that he was almost level with Opal, placing a hand on her head. The skullcap slipped down, nearly covering her eyes.

“Okay, brat. Listen up,” Ronan said. “While I’m gone, I want you to be good and listen to the psychics. Don’t eat the furniture, or drink any of that weird smelling tea they try to give you. And use your English words. Got it?”

Opal glared at him. “ _Futue te ipsum_ ,” she said in fluent Latin, and both her tone and expression were such that Blue did not need a translator to guess what she meant.

“And don’t fucking swear,” Ronan added. He finally let go of her hand, and Opal flounced off just as Calla appeared in the doorway to the reading room with her stack of faded tarot cards.

“Snake,” she said, nodding at Ronan.

He stuck his hands in his pockets, which reminded Blue a lot of Opal. “Thanks for taking her tonight.”  

“We’re happy to!” Maura said.

Calla sneered. “We’ll make sure that nothing irreversible happens to her.” Then she laughed in a way that actually sounded fond. “Have a good time, both of you, and try to stay out of trouble.”

“Don’t stay out of trouble. Be normal teenagers!” Maura called from the sofa.

“But their kind of trouble is never really normal teenager trouble, is it?” Calla muttered. She rolled her eyes, and then she hugged Blue, smelling of sage and footy tea as Maura waved cheerfully at them.

“Have fun!”

Blue pulled open the front door again. “See you guys later. Bye.” She grabbed Ronan by the sleeve of his jacket and tugged him outside. They clumped down the front steps, one pair of cheap second hand boots, and another pair of considerably more expensive leather boots scuffing through a light dusting of snow. The BMW was waiting for them on the street, frost forming across the back windows and the headlamps blazing in the dull winter sunlight. The battery never seemed to run down, no matter how long Ronan left them on, no matter how often he sat parked with the stereo blasting, and Blue knew it had to be a dream feature.

She slid into the passenger seat while Ronan took his usual spot behind the wheel, glancing back down the front drive to 300 Fox Way, and the lights that blazed in the windows. His expression managed to convey both concern and disdain at exactly the same time.

Blue reached over to pat his arm. “Opal will be fine,” she assured him.

“Yeah. I know,” Ronan muttered, not sounding entirely convinced.

“I’m more worried about the sofa,” Blue added. “And the coffee table.”

Ronan elbowed her hand away. “Shut up, Sargent.” But he was smirking again. He gunned the engine, jolting the BMW through the first couple of gears before it was even halfway down the street. Snow speckled the windshield as they drove away, the radio spitting out something that made Blue feel electric.

“Did Adam get time off work?” she said.

“Yeah. Picking him up on the way.”

“And Gansey?”

“Helen came to get him in the helicopter this morning—said something about a fancy ass lunch reservation. We can meet him at the party.” The car skidded to a stop at a red light and Ronan turned to look at her. “Wanna race?” he said inexplicably.

Blue snorted. “What?”

Ronan had downshifted the BMW and now it idled in neutral. She could hear his impatient heartbeat in the rattle of the gearstick knob, his breathing in the growl of the engine underneath the hood. She watched his knuckles turn white as he clenched both hands tightly around the steering wheel.

“No one else is even out here,” she added.

His smile was razor sharp. “Exactly.”

“So then, what are we going to race against?”

“Nothing.” Ronan moved his right hand to the gearstick. “Just us.”

The opposing light turned yellow, and then red. Blue watched Ronan pound his foot down on the gas pedal, heard the engine scream, fat black tires spraying wet snow everywhere in the rear view mirror. She grabbed the handle above her door and held on tightly as the BMW exploded off the stop line.

“What are you doing, Lynch? This is crazy!” she shouted.

The tires slipped in the slush, making the back half of the car spin out slightly as Ronan sent them careening through the intersection. Blue braced her other hand on the dashboard. It was vibrating underneath her palm, the vinyl hot and smooth against her skin. Ronan snarled out a few choice words and yanked on the wheel, managing to get the car back under control at the last second.

He was laughing.

Blue almost never heard him laugh like that, loose and happy and wild.

She thought that she really liked the sound of it.

“Fuck!” Ronan shouted, but not angrily.  

“You could have killed us,” Blue pointed out, but she was laughing too.

They reached the parking lot outside St. Agnes in record time. Ronan skidded to a messy stop outside the church office, and then leaned on the horn, blasting it a few times in quick succession before he climbed out of the BMW. He left the keys in the ignition, and ducked back inside at the last second to point his finger at Blue.

“If you steal my car…”

“Where would I go?” Blue said, rolling her eyes.

In reality, she was not sure that her feet could reach the pedals. Ronan reclined his seat so far back that even Adam had to adjust it closer when he drove, and more importantly, the BMW was a snarling, terrifying beast of a car. Blue barely trusted herself behind the wheel of the Camaro yet, and that was with Gansey sitting patiently on her right, guiding her through the clunky gear changes.

She craned her neck around to watch Ronan jog across the parking lot, and a moment later he disappeared through a side door that led up to the tiny apartment Adam was renting above the church.

Music still throbbed inside the car.

Ronan had dropped his phone in the cup holder, and it buzzed with a new text.

Blue played with the window tab, watching the glass pane slide up and down.

Ronan reappeared several minutes later with Adam trailing just behind him, and a battered messenger bag slung over one shoulder. The front of his shirt was rumpled, and his tie was crooked. He looked extremely pleased with himself as he threw open the driver side door and collapsed inside the car.

Blue released her seat belt. “You can sit up here,” she said to Adam, but he just shook his head. His dusty brown hair was uncharacteristically messy, and it was sticking up at the back.

He took the messenger bag from Ronan.

“I’ll just sit in the back. I have to study anyway.”

Blue smirked.

“I have to study anyway,” Ronan echoed, trying and failing to mimic the drawling Henrietta accent that Adam hated so much—but Blue saw the way his eyes flicked to the rear view mirror in time to see Adam settle behind him, how his mouth twitched up at the corners when Adam deliberately kicked the back of the driver seat.

They were both so obvious.

Blue wondered if she was the same around Gansey.

“Are you ready for the most epic road trip of all time?” Ronan said, reaching for the gearstick.

“How far away is D.C. again?” Blue teased him.

They both watched as Adam pulled out a heavy biology textbook, and some notepaper in the rear view mirror. He stuck a blunt pencil behind his ear, paused, and then glanced up uncertainly.

“Um. What?”

Ronan snorted, and tossed his phone at Blue. “You can pick the music.”

 

 

**~**

 

 

It was getting dark by the time they reached a familiar gated community. At least it was familiar to Ronan, who had visited with Gansey one other time for a slightly awkward dinner party. He parked the BMW in the circular driveway as Blue pressed her face to the passenger window. Adam had dozed off about an hour ago in the back seat with a book open across his knees, and his mouth was hanging open.

He jerked awake when Ronan shut off the music.

“Are we stopping for gas?” he mumbled.

“No, idiot. We’re here.”

“If you couldn’t tell by the mansion and expense cars,” Blue added dryly.

While Adam gathered up his things, Ronan got out to stomp around the front of the BMW. The last thing he wanted to do right now was go inside. He knew from experience that the Gansey house would feel like a prison to him. An enormous, elaborate prison, probably—but still a prison. He could already feel his tie starting to strangle him, and he reached up to tug angrily on the knot.

“Hey.” Adam had appeared beside him, and touched his arm. “Let me fix that.”

Ronan sneered. “I can do it myself.”

The moment he said the words he felt terrible, guilt clawing hot and vicious inside his chest, but Adam just shrugged and said in a completely level voice, “Okay. Carry my stuff for me, then.”

Ronan snatched at the messenger bag, hooking the strap over his shoulder.

“How many fucking books do you have in here?” he muttered.

Despite himself, he could feel some of the tension in him easing under the weight of the bag. Adam had read the situation, and correctly assumed that Ronan needed a distraction, needed something to do that would make him feel even slightly useful.

He did not want to smile, but it was stuck in the corner of his mouth.

Blue came up on his other side. “Is that a Mercedes Benz over there?”

“Why are you even surprised?” Ronan said. “People here are rich as fuck.”

“Maybe we should just go in,” Adam suggested quickly.

The three of them headed up the path to the front door, which was made of frosted glass in a silver frame. “It looks like modern art,” Blue muttered disdainfully, and Ronan had never liked her more than he did in that moment. Adam bumped gently against his shoulder, reaching for his hand. His palm was slightly sweaty when Ronan tangled their fingers together.

He still smelled a little like motor oil.

“Is someone going to ring the doorbell?” Adam said.

“No. I was just gonna stand out here in the cold all fucking night.”

Blue rolled her eyes and reached out, but at that exact moment a shape appeared on the other side of the glass, and then the door was pulled open.

“Hello!” Gansey exclaimed, because he exclaimed almost everything.

Blue hugged him.

Ronan and Adam squeezed past them into the house.

“Was the drive alright?” Gansey was saying, one arm still wrapped around Blue while he bumped the door shut behind her. He led them all down the front hall, which was probably wider than any other hall Ronan had ever seen or been in, with high arched ceilings and too many awful Christmas decorations straight out of a home magazine.

To his relief, no other guests had arrived, although he was mildly irritated that he had already changed into his suit. Blue and Gansey were walking close enough that they kept bumping into each other, and they looked so badly matched that it was actually kind of perfect. Gansey in his crisp black pants and white shirt, his red silk tie knotted tightly at his throat. Blue in her scuffed boots and the dress she had assembled from six or seven different items of clothing.

Adam touched the back of his hand very softly.

“Want to help me take my stuff upstairs? I should change before the party starts.”         

“Good idea,” Gansey said. “You know where the spare bedroom is?”

“Which one?” Ronan muttered, carefully ignoring the look that Adam shot him.

There was a beat.

Blue reached over to poke Ronan in the arm. “Why are you such a shit?”

“Come on,” Adam said, dragging him towards the stairs.

 

 

**~**

 

 

“This pretty much sucks,” Blue muttered several long hours later. She was standing with Ronan next to the food table, both of them watching as people in seven hundred dollar outfits picked through perfectly symmetrical squares of cheese. The window ledges all glittered with tinsel and fake snow. There were red ties everywhere.

Gansey had disappeared.

Adam had disappeared.

Ronan was trying not to feel betrayed.

“We could go dance?” Blue suggested. She jerked her head at a small section of floor that had been commandeered by couples swaying back and forth to bad Christmas music. Then she laughed, and Ronan laughed, and it actually felt like they were having fun for the first time all night.

Ronan grabbed two flutes of champagne off a passing tray.  He held one out to Blue. “Bottoms up.”

“No way. I am not drinking that.”

“Come on, Sargent. Just a sip.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Blue scowled at him. “You are a horrible person.” But she took the flute and tipped it to her mouth, squeezing her eyes shut as she took a tiny drink. “Yuck. Is that champagne? It’s completely disgusting.”

Ronan laughed, and emptied his glass in one swallow.

Blue was right. It was disgusting.

“Want to get out of here?” he muttered, leaning down to say it next to her ear.

Blue waved her hand in front of her face. “Your breath smells like it now.”

“Come on.” Ronan grabbed her arm, pulling her quickly behind the food table. “I think I know where the back door is.” He led the way out of the room, down a short hallway that was lined with garland and tinsel. The first door he tried was a bathroom, a glass bowl of sparkly fake snow positioned carefully next to the sink, but the second door let out to the kitchen.

Ronan yanked Blue in after him.

“Fucking finally. That music.”

“It sucks,” Blue agreed. She wandered over to the counter and leaned both her elbows on the edge, her expression tense, confused. “I kind of thought it would be different, because of Gansey,” she said after a minute. “But it turns out I just really hate parties. And people. And all this stuff.”

“Hey, listen. I hate to too,” Ronan said. “All this stuff.”

“What about Adam?”

“He hates it too, probably. He just thinks pretending to be like them is easier.”

“Gansey too,” Blue muttered.

They just looked at each other for a while, the terrible Christmas music filtering faintly under the closed door. Ronan wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers, and Blue fiddled with a loose thread in her dress, tugging it out longer and longer.

It was… not exactly nice.

But it was something.

Ronan finally pulled out his phone. “I’m gonna text him.”

“Gansey?” Blue said.

“Yeah. He can find Adam. We can sneak out.”

“What? They never will.”

“You want to bet on that?” Ronan challenged her.

Blue just rolled her eyes, and then she waited while Ronan texted Gansey.

 

\- _In the kitchen with the maggot bring Parrish too_

 

Five minutes later the kitchen door opened, and Gansey poked his head inside.

“What are you two doing? I was looking for you.”

“You found us,” Ronan said. “Get in here, and shut the door. I hate that music.”

“What are you doing?” Gansey repeated, sounding only slightly irritated as Adam pushed him through the doorway. Blue hopped up to sit on the counter, swinging her legs over the side, and Ronan watched the way that Gansey was immediately drawn toward her, how he entered her orbit so easily, reaching out to place his index and middle finger lightly on her knee.

Adam came up beside him, and bumped their shoulders together. “Hey.”

Ronan grinned. His face was getting warm. “Enjoying the party?”

“Not really,” Adam admitted.

“So then, what are we going to do next?” Gansey said, in the kingly voice that he always used right before he told everyone exactly what they were all going to do next. Which was how the four of them ended up sneaking down the hall to the back door, easing it open carefully, and stepping out into the enormous back yard.

“Is that a fountain?” Blue said, sounding only slightly accusatory.

Ronan rolled his eyes, and wrapped one arm around Adam from behind. “What if we all went swimming in there?” he suggested, and it was a joke, but Adam still punched him gently in the side before stretching up to kiss his cheek.

“Yuck,” Blue teased, smiling just a fraction too wide.

Ronan ruffled her spiky hair and muttered, “Shut up, maggot.”

They wandered deeper into the garden, which was more like a weird maze than anything else, with all the shaped hedges and nude statues. Adam pressed up against his side, and Ronan grabbed Blue by her sleeve to keep her from walking off, and Gansey got pulled along because he was holding her hand.

It felt perfect, and it also felt wrong, because Noah was missing.

It possibly also felt a little wrong because Henry was missing.

Ronan was slightly annoyed with himself.

The four of them stopped near a concrete bench, and by wordless communication, sat down there together. The sky was black and gray, a faded bruise with stars poking between clouds. Somewhere nearby water was tricking from a fountain, and Ronan felt the cold cement through his trousers.

“I like you all so much,” Gansey said finally, and his voice was very serious.

“Me too,” Blue whispered.

“Yeah,” Adam finished.

Ronan reached down and grabbed his hand.  Blue leaned her head on his other arm.

They were all connected in that moment—hips touching hips, knees touching knees, shoulders touching shoulders, breathing in time together, and it was the best that Ronan had felt all year, probably.

He smiled.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you soooo much for reading guys! Your kudos and comments fill me with joy and make me want to keep writing!


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